Midterm elections are just around the corner, and the big issue is... the Mark Foley Congressional Page Scandal! That's right -- forget about that war in Iraq and Afghanistan, US funding of the Israeli war on the Palestinians, the repeal of habeas corpus rights, expanded militarization of the US borders, criminalization of immigrants, and the revitalization of the nuclear power industry... it's time to talk about -- INSTANT MESSAGES! That's right -- Mark Foley has admitted to exchanging lurid instant messages with underage pages.
Oh -- did I mention they were MALE pages? I know -- it comes as just as much a revelation to me that there are lecherous, closeted Republicans with homosexual tendencies jerking off online while asking underage boys-to-men to get comfortable, feel free to remove your shorts... okay, I can't find the exact quotes right now, but sure -- they read like something out of bad porn, including one exchange where a page says he has a fetish for casts (ha ha, what a good one!). But that didn't throw Mark Foley off -- in seconds, he was asking something about length or girth -- a man with focus.
Within days of the scandal, Mark Foley suddenly revealed that he was -- GASP! -- an alcoholic. No way -- an alcoholic in CONGRESS? And then -- guess what? -- he was sexually abused by A PRIEST!
Meanwhile, Democrats are suddenly talking about taking back Congress, now that a Republican moral values crusader has been exposed as nothing more than a FAGGOT (read: pedophile). The violence of this homophobia on all sides is simply breathtaking.
This all reminds me of growing up in DC, oh that beastly city of my childhood memory! I met so many men like Mark Foley, in public bathrooms at department stores, shopping malls and libraries in Northwest Washington. Men like Mark Foley shook as they took my dick in their mouths, sweat drenching their starched business suits, the pockmarks on their skin flushing deeper. I didn't know what I wanted -- I just knew that I didn't want to feel, that I didn't want to go back to those bathrooms and yet I did.
I thought I had discovered something that no one else knew about -- the tapping of feet underneath stall walls, notes written on toilet paper and wrapped around pens, the texture of hairs between pants-below-knees and everything above. This was my gay world of desire and loathing, the place I inhabited so many evenings after school -- it's where I learned about men like Mark Foley -- at the urinals, between stalls, in the stairwell, in their cars in the parking lot.
I remember this one guy who drove me to my father's office -- it was just one block away, but he really wanted to drive me. He handed me his business card -- Capitol Hill, lobbyist. I wondered about his audacity -- did he know I was 15? I hoped that I was passing as older. I wondered what would happen if I called him, but that was his desire not mine. I wanted so much more.
Here is what I would've wanted that lobbyist -- or Mark Foley -- to say to me, if I'd run into him at Woodie’s department store or Mazza Gallery or Georgetown Park: This is a monstrous world we live in, but your defiant faggotry will take you to places as brilliant as you can imagine -- if you need somewhere to go to talk about your dreams, your hopes and hopelessness, don't hesitate to call -- I will require nothing of you.
Unfortunately, Mark Foley will probably never utter these words, and that is the real tragedy.
Monday, October 23, 2006
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8 comments:
Dear Mattilda,
I love your blog.
Love,
Donna Minkowitz
Great blog and great insightful comments. Gotta love the patriarchy where it is okay to harm others if you were abused? *Insert outraged face* I just absolutely love that excuse. Instead of getting proper psychological help and working on healing, Foley chose to act in inappropriate ways and then blamed his past on his current actions. Guess what? I've been abused far worse than Foley and you don't see me going out and hurting others!!!!! In fact, I'm reaching out and trying to do something to improve other people's situations. *Sigh*
great to see that you are blogging Mattilda, if anyone has anything to say its you! and you say it with style too.
Oh-- such beautiful comments on this post, I'm touched-- thanks for writing!
Love--
mattilda
This is a fantastic comment about Folely ie: the Surprise! Suprise! part. Hilarious and on the money.
I've been having a disagreement with my friend wether the reaction to Folely is sourced from homophobia. Of course there are plenty of homophobic responses from all the ususal subjects, etc. But my friend forcefully tells me, in a way that implies that there is to be no further discussion, that the reaction would have been as outraged if Foley was making moves toward teenage girls.
At the same time, I habitually listen to talk radio, and Randi Rhodes has been on the air spouting for days about how the Republicans are pedophiles, but she wants to make clear that she is not attacking the gays, and that gay and pedophila are different things. That Foley, having gone after 16 and 17 year olds; and is not technically a pedophile, seems not to matter to her. I theorise that the culturally abhorrent homosexuality in this situation makes it easy for her and others to make the intellectual leaps to where hitting on 17 year olds makes one a pedophile. How is that not homophobia?
Of course Foley is a creep.
This is a fantastic comment about Folely ie: the Surprise! Suprise! part. Hilarious and on the money.
I've been having a disagreement with my friend wether the reaction to Folely is sourced from homophobia. Of course there are plenty of homophobic responses from all the ususal subjects, etc. But my friend forcefully tells me, in a way that implies that there is to be no further discussion, that the reaction would have been as outraged if Foley was making moves toward teenage girls.
At the same time, I habitually listen to talk radio, and Randi Rhodes has been on the air spouting for days about how the Republicans are pedophiles, but she wants to make clear that she is not attacking the gays, and that gay and pedophila are different things. That Foley, having gone after 16 and 17 year olds; and is not technically a pedophile, seems not to matter to her. I theorise that the culturally abhorrent homosexuality in this situation makes it easy for her and others to make the intellectual leaps to where hitting on 17 year olds makes one a pedophile. How is that not homophobia?
Of course Foley is a creep.
This is a fantastic comment about Folely ie: the Surprise! Suprise! part. Hilarious and on the money.
I've been having a disagreement with my friend wether the reaction to Folely is sourced from homophobia. Of course there are plenty of homophobic responses from all the ususal subjects, etc. But my friend forcefully tells me, in a way that implies that there is to be no further discussion, that the reaction would have been as outraged if Foley was making moves toward teenage girls.
At the same time, I habitually listen to talk radio, and Randi Rhodes has been on the air spouting for days about how the Republicans are pedophiles, but she wants to make clear that she is not attacking the gays, and that gay and pedophila are different things. That Foley, having gone after 16 and 17 year olds; and is not technically a pedophile, seems not to matter to her. I theorise that the culturally abhorrent homosexuality in this situation makes it easy for her and others to make the intellectual leaps to where hitting on 17 year olds makes one a pedophile. How is that not homophobia?
Of course Foley is a creep.
Yes, that situation with Foley is interesting. Not long before now, there was a similar situation with a former mayor of Spokane, Washington. He was in chat rooms, but before he was mayor, he was in state legislature proposing anti gay legislation. Now Spokane has a new mayor and that person has passed away. In some ways, I feel sorry for people like this, but glad that the Republican Party is getting lots of bad news.
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